Collier Avenue median to get council's attention

A sport utility vehicle drives past a weed growing in the median on Collier Avenue in Lake Elsinore. The City Council is poised to hire a landscape architect to help redesign and beautify the medians.

www.andrewfoulkphotography.com

A sport utility vehicle drives past a weed growing in the median on Collier Avenue in Lake Elsinore. The City Council is poised to hire a landscape architect to help redesign and beautify the medians.

A sport utility vehicle drives past a weed growing in the median on Collier Avenue in Lake Elsinore. The City Council is poised to hire a landscape architect to help redesign and beautify the medians. (www.andrewfoulkphotography.com)

Lake Elsinore officials want to elevate the appearance of a gateway street's median from bland to grand.

With that in mind, the City Council is scheduled Tuesday to consider hiring an architect that will be given the mission of designing improvements on the Collier Avenue center divider.

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District board room.

Collier's raised median separates traffic along a nearly mile-long stretch between Riverside Drive and Nichols Road. Located in northern Lake Elsinore parallel to Interstate 15, Collier provides access to two freeway interchanges and numerous businesses, including the Lake Elsinore Outlets mall. The mall itself is undergoing a massive renovation intended to spice up the look of the aging complex.

Beautifying the Collier median, which now contains dirt and weeds, has long been a council priority. Yet budget constraints and personnel changes had delayed action until the council in March authorized the city's Public Works Department to proceed with full landscaping of the median.

"It's been on our list to do for many years and we decided it's time to upgrade the look," said Lake Elsinore Project Manager Peter Ramey.

The city's staff is recommending Tuesday that the council contract Lake Elsinore architectural firm Flores Lund Consultants to do the design at an estimated cost of $72,238. Flores Lund is a division of the national company, BergerABAM.

"This (offer) is reasonable for the amount of work involved," Ramey said.

The city's selection committee ranked the firm first among four consultants invited to submit proposals. Flores Lund has designed numerous projects around the West and the region, including landscaping designs for Hemet High School and Winco in Temecula.

City officials have specified the project will include lit monument signs, drought-tolerant landscaping, full irrigation with shut-off sensors, and Canary Island Date Palms relocated from other spots in the city.

"All the medians by the Lake Elsinore Outlets mall will be totally irrigated and landscaped," Ramey said.

The city plans for the landscaping work to start in early January after the busy November and December shopping season at the Outlets, he said.